Harper Party Spies

To hear the Harper Party loyalists talk, you’d think that the Liberal Party of Canada has a problem.  Yet another Liberal has spoken words that don’t echo the words of their leader.

And this is a problem?

Let’s set the scene.  A woman asked retired General Andrew Leslie about his thoughts regarding the Israeli Palestine situation.  The General gave a long answer including the need for Israel to be able to defend herself from terrorists, such as Hamas, but he also blamed the Israeli military for the deaths of civilians in Palestine.

I guess the General didn’t realize that he was talking with a Harper Party spy.  Looking to get whatever dirt she could dig up on a noted Liberal contender for the 2015 Election and she hit the mother lode!  This guy thinks the Israeli military shouldn’t have killed Palestinian civilians!

What a horrid thought.  No mere MP much less a noted advisor to Stephen Harper would say such a thing.  No, Stephen’s troops would blindly parrot the talking points issued from the unelected, appointed, not ready for big boy pants crew in the PMO. 

Nope, they’d swallow their gumption and say whatever their Leader says they should say.  Here are your pompoms and here’s your script: “Israel is good, Palestinians are bad and they all deserve to die.”

Rah Team!

The problem with the Harper Party antics is that General Leslie is right.  As a professional soldier, trained in the military, he knows the rules and one of the biggies is that every effort must be undertaken to prevent civilian casualties or “collateral damage” as they like to say today.

What is even more horrid is the tactics that the Harper Team are stooping to in an attempt to try and demonize the Liberal Party.

While the Harper Party complains about the liberal media and “gotcha journalism” they are stepping down several rungs with these Secret Agent X19 tactics.  Sneak a recording device in and try and get the enemy to say something that can be used against them.  And then try to get the so called incriminating evidence into the public eye.

The Harperistas didn’t send their ill gotten booty to the media, not at first; they tried to hand it over to a prominent Jewish organization who put the kibosh on that plan.  They were smart enough to not get involved in petty politics, maybe they can read the writing on the wall or maybe they just don’t like the idea of being used as a dupe for the Harper Party?

So they went with Plan B.  Hand the audio over to the Sun News Network, the finest investigative journalists this side of 1972 Pravda.  And the Sun News Crew was more than happy to jump all over this.

The Harper People crow about this, they see nothing wrong, they just want people to know what goes on in the opposing camp.  What they don’t say is that this is putting a chilling effect on Democracy in Canada.

It is hard enough to get a politician to say anything in public now, they don’t want to annoy the Boss, but in the future, every politician of every stripe is going to be guarded in what they say lest there be a secret agent nearby.  And when they’re done with the named politicians, they can start on those who are merely considering running for office.

Seriously, it is hard to get a politician to comment on the weather anymore.  What with having to consider if this stretch of warm weather is bad for the farmers and so on it takes them tem minutes to come up with “Yep, nice weather.”  It is getting to the point that some politicians cannot scratch their butt without a note from the PMO.

Real boats rock, Steve.  Having people within a party who hold differing opinions is not a bad thing, it is part of Democracy.  Any Leader, be it in politics or business that surrounds themselves with kowtowing lackies soon finds themselves on the outside looking in.

But your echo boxes are half right.  How can Canadians decide on which candidate is best for their riding if we don’t know how they think and what they feel about the issues that we care about?  Simply put they can’t.

I am comfortable in voting for someone who has the wits and courage to speak their mind in public.  It means that they have the ability to speak up for me in the House and in the Caucus.  These are not your people, Steve.

They are mine.

And for what it’s worth, there are an awful lot of people like me who think that the killing and wounding of civilians is wrong.  It doesn’t matter which side does it.

I like General Leslie a hell of a lot more that any echo box you have to offer.

Ta ta for now,

BC

Stephen, Why Do You Treat Our Veterans Like Political Pawns?

How do you put out a fire?

Simple question, first of all it depends on how big the fire is.  If it is a small fire, like a candle, it’s pretty simple.  You can blow it out, some like to dampen their fingertips and pinch the flame out, or the more elegant might use a candle snuffer.  Basically you can douse it with water (on your fingertips) or starve it for fuel (with the snuffer).

If it’s a larger fire, like a campfire you can toss a bucket of water on it, starve it for fuel and let it burn out on its own.

What if it’s a big fire?  Like a PMO/Senate Scandal?

Well Steve and Co. have tried just about everything you can think of.  They tried to let it burn itself out, no luck.  They threw water on it and tossed people under the bus to no avail.

They even sent their minions with torches at Justin Trudeau, the only problem is that Canadians like Justin Trudeau.  He may not be everyone’s choice for PM, but lots of us grew up with him.  He’s a nice guy.

And the fire the Harperistas started at JT’s feet just drew more people to him to sit by the fire.  Like going camping or enjoying a bonfire.  It just wasn’t working.

So the Harper folk looked for a new place to set a fire.  I mean intentionally.

So they set their torches toward recently retired Lieutenant General Andrew Leslie.  And they got a fire started.

A lot of people are upset that the General’s move to a new home not far from his existing home ran to $72,000.00 or so. 

CTV reported this, Minister Rob Nicholson is telling the DND to look into this.  But the bottom line is that it appears that the only thing that General Leslie did wrong was to join the wrong political party.

He joined the Liberal Party of Canada.

You see, because the Military requires members of the Forces to relocate, there is a provision that helps to take care of the move.  A benefit of serving for 20 or more years in the Military is that the government pays for one last move.  It could be across town or across the country, but the government has a third party company that takes care of packing, storing, and moving the retirees’ property to the new location.  The Integrated Relocation Plan (IRP) also takes care of some of the expenses in selling the old home and buying the new one.  In General Leslie’s case, this was $72,000.00.

General Leslie did not hire anyone, he didn’t do anything other than what a 20+ year veteran would do.  He submitted his information for the move.  The third party took care of the rest.

The IRP has been on the books for decades.  As a matter of fact, the Auditor General submitted a report on the IRP in November 2006 to the Harper government that pointed out a number of problems with the IRP.  The government did nothing about it.  They even repeated problems that the AG pointed out in 2006.

When General Leslie moved in 2011, no alarms went off, no one at the Treasury Board Secretariat (Tony Clement’s department) waved any flags and no one in Rob Nicholson’s National Defence Department raised any issues either.

Actually, the Harper Party was so enamoured with General Leslie that they offered him a job, even hinting that he should run for them in the next election.  No they didn’t get mad at him until after he had signed on to be an advisor to the Liberal Party on International Affairs.

Go figure.

The Harper Party should take care here.  They have already offended the Veterans and the Military with their treatment of our Warriors.  They are adding fuel to that fire by starting up with General Leslie.

You see the danger is that when you start fires, they can become unpredictable… especially when they are big ones. 

It just depends on which way the wind blows. 

Laters BC

Maybe Stever should be happy we don’t live in an emerging Democracy like Egypt… It’s not good to pee on the military there, is it Steve?